Mage builds
PvE Leveling Deep Frost This is your standard frost build for single target DPS along with improved blizzard. Very good for instances as well as PVP. Deep Frost AoE Grind Now that Blizzard can crit, a drastic change in AOE grinding is formed. Talents that increase crit chance and damage are now valuable. Frost Mage AOE Minimalist Build 0/0/31 5-mans and Soloing/Farming *0/0/68 +2 Frost 5-mans/Solo build **High damage on trash due to not having to Scorch, high mana-efficiency allowing for chain-pulling on instances/farming, and high survivability through tools such as Deep Freeze and Ice Barrier. AoE is very good thanks to Improved Blizzard triggering Fingers of Frost, which in turn triggers Shatter. Instance boss encounters are short, favoring the high burst Frost can deliver through cooldown stacking of Water Elemental, Icy Veins and damage trinkets. Raiding Raiding mages generally want high single target DPS and/or lots of AOE power. Depending on your gear, length of the fight, movement, trash clearing, and interruptions, there's no real "perfect" raiding build. These are the standard builds for each school and how casting works to maximize DPS. Core talents are contained in the builds, extra talent points are available in some cases. Fire Fire builds typically have the highest possible DPS due to the large amount of DPS-related talents in the tree, though they sacrifice mobility and durability to achieve such a goal. Their AoE capabilities are also respectable if specced for. *(10/50/0 +1) Firepower Build **This build is based off of doing as much damage to a single target as possible. It mostly disregards safety abilities because if a Mage gets hit in a raid, they probably won't live to be attacked again. It also skips several AOE talents to go deeper down the Arcane tree for efficiency. The Mage has to choose between Focus Magic or Living Bomb, depending on his mana situation. If he uses glyphed Mage Armor and has Replenishment providers in the raid, keeping Living Bomb up is a DPS increase. Fireball is the primary nuke, and Scorch must be used every 30 seconds to keep up Improved Scorch, while Pyroblast is to be cast on every Hot Streak. Frost Frost builds sacrifice a small percentage of DPS in exchange for snares and crowd control. Frost is in most cases the most mana-efficient tree avaliable and performs best in long-duration encounters. They provide the highest damage Mage AoE through Improved Blizzard, Fingers of Frost and Shatter. Arcane Arcane builds are also designed to sacrifice a small percentage of DPS in exchange for high mobility in the form of the instant-cast nuke Arcane Barrage. PvP *Note that all PvP and playstyle are very personal, and these builds exist to exemplify and point good directions that have been found to be worthwhile by the community. Frost Frost builds have respectable longevity due to their higher control, survivability and mana-efficiency. They also can infict high amounts of damage in short periods of time with their abilities and talents that revolve against Frozen mechanics. *(7/0/54) Deep Freeze + Magic Absorption This build is an Arena build, variants of which are employed by Affix of Tichondrius and Faxmonkey of Blackrock, two highly regarded PvP Frost mage players, among others. It relies on the control provided by Deep Freeze and Shattered Barrier, and the burst provided by Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze. Snares are boosted by Permafrost and Chilled to the Bone. *(17/0/44) Deep Ice + Imp CS This build relies on great control and very high burst DPS. Thanks to the Shattered Barrier and Improved Water Elemental abilities you can now pretty much spam Frost Nova and crit your targets with Ice Lance, Frost Bolt and Water Elemental. Icy Veins and Fingers of Frost help you increase your burst DPS. With a few major and minor glyphs you can further improve your efficiency. The points spent in the arcane tree provide you with moderate resistance against all schools of magic, and with the Imp CS ability which is invalubale agaisnt any caster and even the charge of the waror(charge has a shorter range then CS). Arcane Arcane builds, with the introduction of Arcane Barrage, gained even greater burst potential than Frost, though they provide less control and survival abilities, if respectable ones (Prismatic Cloak and Slow, for instance). Fire Level 80 Builds :Until the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is actually released, all talent info is subject to change, especially over level 70. Frost *http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZfVZVIccofu0fzgfsx (0/10/54 +7) **This build consists of spamming Frostbolt at all times and using Frostfire Bolt on the second charge of Fingers of Frost, while using the Water Elemental on every cooldown and stacking Icy Veins with damage trinkets. Ignite is taken to boost the Frostfire and Brain Freeze critical strikes. It is highly recommended that one pick up at least one point of Improved Blizzard in this build, as it allows the spell to proc Fingers of Frost, which in turn leads to the Shatter bonus, boosting AoE greatly (remember Blizzard can crit now). This build is VERY mana-efficient, so it is not necessary for the remaining points to be spent in mana-efficiency talents. Fire *http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0qcz0hZ0Ef0ohIhVubhct (18/51/0 +2) ** Theorycraft has shown this to be the top Fire raiding build due to Spell Impact and Focus Magic. Its rotation is highly interactive, consisting of spamming Fireball at all possible times, using Scorch every 30 seconds to maintain the Improved Scorch debuff and casting Pyroblast when Hot Streak happens. Mage Armor should be used, and if the player finds themselves with manageable mana Living Bomb should be kept up on the target. Two points can be put in either Burning Soul or Flame Throwing, or into Dragon's Breath and Blast Wave. If the player has need of any other talents, World in Flames is a good place to remove points from, as its DPS impact is minimal. *http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=oZfVcbohIuVubhstbIccoc (0/53/18) ** This build is based on Frostfire Bolt, and is classified as Fire rather than elemental for its steep expenditure into the Fire tree, too unbalanced to call Elemental. The rotation in this tree is exactly like the one in the above Fireball build, except replacing Fireball with Frostfire Bolt and using Living Bomb at all times since Frostfire Bolt is highly mana-efficient. *Arcane Fiery + Icy Viens ** -explanation- See also * Mage theorycraft, for those interested in the numbers behind the builds. Category:Guides Category:Mage talents